For ages, people have been fascinated with the possibility they may have a twin or double existing somewhere in the world population. With the advent of photography and more modernly, digital photography, the interest in the concept of having a double has only increased due to the sheer number of available photographs of people in publications and on the internet.
In previous decades, it would take many hours to physically search photos of people and compare them to the characteristics in a photo or photos of a person wanting to seek a possible twin or double. However, with the advent of digitized photography and facial recognition and associated software and algorithms, facial recognition has become a science which employs the vast power of data processing to identify one face among millions.
A prime reason for the employment of such digital facial recognition software and digital photography in the past has been law enforcement and security. Las Vegas casinos use a plethora of cameras on their property to communicate pictures of patrons to computers and software to try and continually ascertain if people entering a casino are on a known list of undesirables. Most other facial recognition uses are also for security purposes and employ a digital facial photo to the characteristics of millions of file photographs of individuals which are in a relational database. Each stored photo is associated with the person's history and identity. A match of a captured photo of a person with a file photo and associated profile of that person essentially is done to ascertain if they are a security threat.
Consequently, digital photo recognition used to match captured or submitted photos has not been substantially employed in the task of ascertaining if a person resembles someone else who has their digital image stored in the database of a social networking site. While such a task would help individuals answer the age old question “do I have a double or twin” it also has commercial potential in identifying body doubles for actors or finding persons with a facial structure to match, for instance, an advertiser's needs for a certain product.
Such a service would be especially fun and interesting for modern social networking where online subscribers regularly search for other members who have commonality. People may subscribe to a social networking provider offering the service of matching their facial photo to others to find people with similar appearances. Thereafter, they may actually communicate with each other. Another possibility of use might be a premium service offered to subscribers which would interface with an opt-in database of photos of members of other existing social networking services such as Facebook or MySpace.
Social networking, using the internet, is arguably one of the biggest successes of the internet over the past five years. Wildly popular networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook and YouTube have risen to provide members world wide exposure for themselves to potential friends, dates, spouses and unfortunately, predators and unseemly individuals. Most such social networking sites offer subscribers the ability to upload their personal photos for display or to store in their profile. Consequently, millions of user's photos are currently stored on servers throughout the world. With the use of an opt-in or premium content subscription, photos of interested third party members can be easily compared to each other and to other social networking sites through a central provider. In this fashion security may be maintained for even the opt-in users as to whether they wish to be contacted by a purported facial match on their own or another social networking site. This ability for users of the service herein or other social networking sites working with a provider of the service herein to ascertain matches in appearance, surely would be of great interest to users and would encourage more social networking.
However, the major focus of most facial recognition software used today is enhancing security and matching real time captured images to images and related files within a database to ascertain if a match exists based on non-user criteria so as to simply identify the person in the captured image. While few providers have established methods for finding twins, no provider has undertaken the unique and very different task of providing a social network which provides a comparison of an inquiring subscriber's provided photograph, immediately and/or continually, to a database of photos stored in memory of other subscribing members of the social network to find individuals in the network with similar facial appearances. Further, allowing the subscriber to input their view of the subjective possible matches and allowing interaction between matched individuals on the social network has yet to be done.
A number of recent software applications and commercial firms have started to employ facial matching for purposes other than security. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 7,450,740, (Shah et al) discloses a method and system for providing the general public who visit their site a means for determining which celebrity they may look like. However, no provision for the inquiring party to effect the outcome of the search is given nor any ongoing social networking and communication between individuals identified in the outcome of the subscriber requested search.
Visionics, a company based in New Jersey provides the FACEIT facial recognition system using an algorithm in a mathematical technique to encode a proprietary database of faces. The system maps the face and creates a faceprint. Once the system has stored a faceprint, it can compare it to thousands or millions of faceprints stored in a database. This system, however, does not combine the service with a social networking system nor does it allow subscriber input to effect the outcome.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,805,238, (Rothfjell) teaches a Method For Identifying Individuals Using Selected Characteristics of Their Body Curves. Rothfjell teaches an identification system in which major features (e.g. the shape of a person's nose in profile) are extracted from an image and stored. For an ID match of that same person, the stored features are subsequently retrieved and overlaid on a current image of the person to verify identity. Rothfjell, however, seeks to identify the same person and to eliminate other persons who might match and to that end provides no means for social networking nor subscriber input as to the outcome.
An additional teaching is found in U.S. Pat. No. 4,712,103 (Gotanda) which employs a type of facial recognition for a Door Lock Control System. Gotanda teaches storing a provided digitized facial image in a non-volatile memory as a key to allow a person access to a secured area if their current picture matches the stored image. However, Gotanda is simply concerned with matching a single individual's images and is not concerned with ascertaining others who might appear similar or in allowing subscriber input to effect the outcome.
Another facial recognition method is taught in U.S. Pat. No. 4,858,000(Lu). Lu teaches an image recognition system and method for identifying a single individual from a predetermined set of individuals, each of whom has a digital representation of his or her face stored in a defined memory space. Lu does not, however, provide any social networking amongst similarly appearing members nor any means for the subscriber to initially impact the outcome of the search.
Another patent by Tal, U.S. Pat. No. 4,975,969 teaches an image recognition system and method which employs ratios of facial parameters such as distances between definable points on facial features such as a nose, mouth, or eyebrow. These are measured from a facial image and are used to characterize the individual rendered to identify them subsequently. However, no social networking and ongoing interaction is provided nor any means for the subscriber to impact the outcome.
Another patent by Lu, U.S. Pat. No. 5,031,228, teaches an image recognition system and method for identifying a single individual from a predetermined set of individuals. A library of all the individuals is also kept. Lu in this instance is still concerned with identifying individuals and eliminating other individuals who might have a very close appearance. No social networking or input of the inquiring subscriber to effect the outcome is provided either.
Yet another prior art reference is U.S. Pat. No. 5,053,603 (Burt). Burt teaches an image recognition system using differences in facial features to eliminate like-appearing individuals and distinguish one individual from another. Burt is, however, concerned with eliminating other individuals who might have a similar appearance and offers no social networking of like-appearing individuals since Burt seeks to eliminate them.
Another facial recognition patent, U.S. Pat. No. 5,164,992, (Turk), a method for recognizing and identifying members of a television viewing audience is taught. The Turk system is designed to observe a group of people and identify individual persons in the group from prior photos. Thereafter, they are identified to incorporate their individual demographics in television ratings determinations. Turk lacks any provision for ascertaining similarly appearing individuals nor any ongoing social networking of subscribers or for allowing the inquiring subscriber to effect the outcome.
Still another is U.S. Pat. No. 5,386,103 (Deban) which teaches the use of a methodology for encoding a reference face of a person and storing that reference face on a card or the like. The reference face is then used to identify the same individual at a point of entry from a new photo at that locale. Like the other art, Deban teaches against the employment of software and steps to find close matches in multiple individuals' appearance and socially networking them as subscribers.
An additional patent by Lu, U.S. Pat. No. 5,432,864 teaches the use of a methodology for encoding a human facial image and storing it on a portable memory device for later retrieval or automatic verification of the same individual at a different time or place. However, provisions for social networking are not provided. Provisions for ascertaining individuals with a similar appearance to a subscriber of a networking service or for allowing the subscriber to input and effect the outcome.
U.S. Patent Publication 2005/0185060 (Neven) teaches a means to inquire about an image using Mobile Telephones With an Integrated Camera. Neven discloses a system using a mobile telephone digital camera to send an image to a server which then converts the image into symbolic information. Thereafter, the system links associated with the server-identified image which are provided by search engines. However, Neven does not teach any system to find similarly appearing individuals on a social networking system or a system which allows subscribers to the system to input and effect the outcome of such a search.
Another patent teaching facial recognition is Adam et al., U.S. Patent Publication 2006/0050933. Adam, however, is for a Single Image Based Multi-Biometric System And Method which integrates face, skin and iris recognition to provide a biometric system to later identify only the same individual when queried.
Accordingly, there exists an unmet need for a device and method which enables subscribers to a social networking provider to ascertain if there are any other persons, in their social network or on an associated social network, who might look like them or actually be their twin. Such a system should endeavor to find the most high quality matches of other individuals within the social network and provide the inquiring subscriber with a set of matches. Such a system should endeavor to allow the inquiring subscriber to provide input leading to the outcome of the search through their personal viewing of the initial match results and input as to those the subscriber finds closest. Such a system should endeavor to find individuals with very similar appearances and eliminate factors such as hair color, background color and photo elements which might effect the outcome also. Such a system should employ networking and database and software to allow the widest distribution of the service so that inquiring subscribers to the social network may have their photos compared to the largest possible collection of other facial images. Such a method should employ networking criteria to allow inquires to come directly from subscribers or from subscribers to other social networking sites as an opt-in, upgrade or extra service to thereby increase the pool of images in the social networking database over time. Such a system should provide a collage of ascertained facial matches for the subscriber to post on their home page for others to view and include a linking ability for the collage if posted on other sites. Finally, such a service should also provide sufficient security measures to insure that an inquiring subscriber to the social network is seeking their own double and not that of another and should only provide contact and identity information to parties finding a match if approved by all parties involved.
With respect to the above, before explaining at least one preferred embodiment of the system for facial matching of an individual to all others in a database in detail, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited in its application to the details of construction and to the arrangement of the components or steps set forth in the following description or illustrated in the drawings. The various apparatus and methods of the invention are capable of other embodiments and of being practiced and carried out in various ways which will be obvious to those skilled in the art once they review this disclosure. Also, it is to be understood that the phraseology and terminology employed herein are for the purpose of description and should not be regarded as limiting.
As such, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the conception upon which this disclosure is based may readily be utilized as a basis for designing of other devices, software and methods and systems for carrying out the several purposes of the present disclosed device and method enabling subscribers to find other individuals with similar or virtually identical facial appearances to their own. It is important, therefore, that the objects and claims be regarded as including such equivalent construction and methodology insofar as they do not depart from the spirit and scope of the present invention.